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Kamyar Jahanrakhshan apparently didn’t listen to Jim Croce. Croce, a popular American folk singer from the 1960’s, warned us not to mess around with the wrong people. “You don’t tug on Superman’s cape. You don’t spit into the wind.” And Kamyar, you don’t threaten a case law company because you will never win. Felony Stupid Prosecutors charged Jahanrakhshan, aka “Kamyar Jahan Rakhshan,” with extortion by threats of damage to Leagle.com. If convicted, he could be sentenced to five years in prsion and fined $250,000....

Unwired Planet Inc., a company that claims to have invented mobile Internet, stands poised to bring six different lawsuits in the United Kingdom. This is an unusual strategy since American courts are generally favored for such patent trolling suits. Patent lawsuits in the UK are arduous and require special judge oversight. Additionally, American litigants are subject to the “American Rule,” where each party pays for its own legal costs. In the UK, the loser is often responsible for the winner’s attorney’s fees....

Smartphones for everyone! $100 phones, $30 plans, and abundant free Wi-Fi. This may mean very little to you directly – lawyers, it seems, are Apple addicts, and there’s no way Apple would ever make a $100 (off-contract) phone. But the implications for advertising, finding clients, and the like are massive. Why? We’ve already seen a surge in mobile Internet traffic. More and more people are using their phones as their primary means of surfing the web, finding restaurants and services, and more importantly, finding lawyers....

First, there was a debate about what direction women should lean, and now, the debate of the month is whether we should “ban bossy” or not. The Ban Bossy Campaign Ban Bossy? Yes, if you haven’t heard it’s the new campaign from Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In Foundation, was trending last week on Twitter and Facebook, has Beyonce as a spokesperson and is in partnership with the Girl Scouts of America. Here’s the gist of the campaign:...

As an attorney, client surveys can provide invaluable feedback for your firm and for your own legal practice. Are you curious to know if your clients like you? If they are happy with the work you’ve done? Some lawyers are skeptical about surveys, thinking that clients might think that they’re just one extra hassle. Here are the top 3 tips for conducting client surveys: Client Survey Tip #1: Decide if you want to have the survey done in writing, face-to-face, or over the phone....

There are few things in a lawyer’s life worse than losing a case. One of those fates worse than a defeat is the dreaded negative online review. Review sites like Yelp! allow the public to review attorneys based on their experiences. That means if you simply fail to return a potential client’s phone call, they can go online and post a one star review, and say you never even bothered to call them back....

US Airlines Pilots Ass’n v. AWAPPA, LLC, 08-1858, involved a US Airline Pilots Association’s (USAPA) suit against the America West Airlines Pilots Protective Alliance, LLC (AWAPPA) and others, pursuant to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO), seeking an injunction and damages claiming that the defendants engaged in extortionate acts that constitute a pattern of racketeering activity. In affirming the district court’s judgment, the court held that the district court did not err in granting defendants’ motion to dismiss the complaint, as USAPA has failed to state a cognizable RICO claim because the appropriate “commonsensical, fact-specific” examination of the allegations in USAPA’s complaint fails to yield a pattern of racketeering activity....

We cover a lot of lawyers and judges acting like idiots around here. In fact, it’s secretly our favorite kind of post, even more so than Supreme Court coverage. But we’ve never seen this: a judge challenging a public defender to a fight, from the bench, and the public defender taking him up on the offer. When Brevard County Judge John Murphy and Public Defender Andrew Weinstock threw down, just outside the courtroom, the most important question was: who won?...

In an appeal from the Bankruptcy Court’s order voiding a payment made by the Debtor to Plaintiff as a preferential transfer, the order is affirmed where the payments, which were made from the Debtor’s other credit card accounts for debt consolidation purposes, constituted “transfer[s] of an interest of the debtor in property” under 11 U.S.C. section 547(b). Read the full decision in Bank of America, N.A. v. Mukamai, No. 08-15958....

My first reaction to this ad was, “Huh?” You’ll probably react that way as well. Heck, the entire Internet already did. AdWeek first highlighted Scott Hoy’s commercial earlier this month. Yesterday, he took the final spot on their list of the “25 Biggest Brand Fails of 2013,” and earlier this month, late night television host Jimmy Fallon mocked the commercial on national television. That’s obviously a lot of exposure, but is this a case of good-bad publicity?...

A former Virginia prosecutor could go to jail for ten years for making a Facebook threat against his former boss. Clifton C. Hicks has been charged with the felony of making threats. In light of recent mass shootings and other tragedies, the target of the threat, Virginia Attorney General Greg Underwood, contacted authorities and indicated that he took the threat seriously, reports The Virginian-Pilot. As a result, Hicks now faces a class 5 felony charge and could face up to ten years in jail for the stupid Facebook comment....

In a fit of curiosity, legendary Brooklyn federal judge Jack Weinstein hopped in a minivan last week, and, armed with an entourage, took a trip to the property at the center of a $1,000,000 lawsuit. Known for presiding over some of the largest mass tort cases in history, and conducting proceedings in a slightly informal style, Judge Weinstein told litigants that he likes “to get a feel for a case and see what it’s really about....

It’s no secret that FindLaw’s Technologist is my favorite of our Legal Professional blogs. Tech + Law = Geek happiness. But this is a surprisingly broad blog: national security, cybercrime, online legal marketing, software, hardware, and gadgets are all fair game. And out of all that, the gadget review posts are my favorite. Why? It’s my chance to play with a new toy and to tell you how that toy might be somewhat, arguably, useful to your practice....

Each year, FindLaw.com asks its in-house legal team for predictions on the big legal issues for the up-coming year. This year, we considered the issues that legal consumers and professionals have asked about, read about and searched for, all year long. Here then, in descending order, is this year’s FindLaw Top Ten List of Hot Legal Topics for 2011. Immigration: In 2010, the passage of Arizona’s SB 1070 heated up the debate over illegal immigration....

The Eleventh Circuit decided two cases today: one concerning an adult establishment’s First Amendment challenge to an ordinance prohibiting it from serving alcohol, and another concerning a defendant’s conviction for knowingly acting in the U.S. as an agent of a foreign government. In Flanigan’s Enters., Inc. v. Fulton County, Ga., No. 08-17035, plaintiff challenged under the First Amendment a county ordinance prohibiting the sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol in adult entertainment establishments....

No, we’re not talking abot Google’s self-driving vehicles that are becoming ubiquitous in Silicon Valley. We’re talking about the “mobile delivery receptacle,” a vehicle specifically designed to accept and deliver packages shuttled to it by the company’s hoards of courier-drones. It’s a good thing that Google got this one patented, too. Who knows what the prior art on this concept is. A Patent Granted The patent is a major win for the search engine company because it gets to be the first to rake in whatever profits are to be had....

One of the rumors that is currently making the rounds on celebrity gossip sites is that Jennifer Lopez’s ex-beaux Beau Casper Smart enjoyed two trysts with transgender individuals. As someone with a functioning brain, this does not interest me in the slightest. What does interest me is free speech on the Internet and defamation. And when a notorious gossip site, TheDirty.com, received a threatening letter regarding a user-submitted rumor about Mr....

I was David; opposing counsel was Goliath. I was a solo practitioner working out of my house; their office lobby was bigger than my house. The firm had so many lawyers they occupied three floors in a downtown high-rise. I was defending a mom-and-pop art dealer; the other side was suing for millions of dollars. As you might guess, I was a little intimidated. But, as you may also have guessed from the David v....

There’s software to manage just about every aspect of the modern law office: your email, your word processing, your document storage, and your meetings. And there’s even software to help you maintain and improve your client relationships. If you’re using paper client files or managing client relationships on an ad-hoc basis, we’d suggest checking out some client relationship management software. Here’s why. Client relationship management programs, or CRM, have been around for a long time now, and there are dozens of options targeted specifically at attorneys....

When it comes to CLE, options for in-house lawyers can be limited. Thankfully, the Association of Corporate Counsel, a bar association for in-house attorneys, has you covered when it comes to meeting your education requirements. You’re especially covered this May, when a slew of CLE trainings are offered. Here’s a quick overview. Everyone’s earning their CLE credits in their PJs and on their couch these days. It’s understandable, now that the ’net can beam in live or prerecorded trainings on demand....